OpenAI has today announced the launch of Stargate UAE, the first international deployment of its AI infrastructure platform, Stargate. The company says it will build a 1GB cluster in Abu Dhabi, and says that coordination with the U.S. government was vital in making the expansion possible.
"Stargate represents our long-term vision for building frontier-scale compute capacity around the world in service of safe, secure, and broadly beneficial AGI," the company said in a press release.
OpenAI says the move is also the first partnership under OpenAI for Countries, a global initiative to help interested governments build sovereign AI capability in coordination with the U.S. government, a scheme OpenAI says is "rooted in democratic values, open markets, and trusted partnerships."
It includes partnerships with G42, Oracle, Nvidia, Cisco, and SoftBank, and the company also went to great pains to thank President Trump personally for his support in making the venture possible.
As mentioned, OpenAI says it will build a 1GW Stargate UAE cluster in Abu Dhabi, with 200MW online by 2026. The partnership includes reciprocal UAE investment into the U.S. Stargate infrastructure, announced during President Trump's visit to the UAE last week.
Announced in January, the Stargate AI project should see $500 billion in private sector investment from the aforementioned partner companies. The intention is to build 20 large data centers, creating around 100,000 jobs in the process. $100 billion of that investment is already available for immediate use, with the rest coming over the next four years.
Each data center should measure 500,000 square feet (46,450 square meters), with construction of the first site in Texas already underway. As for application, the data centers should power advanced AI and artificial general intelligence with applications in areas such as healthcare.
OpenAI says the initiative builds on this commitment, "and reinforces OpenAI’s commitment to strengthening U.S. infrastructure while helping allies gain access to transformative AI responsibly and securely." It says OpenAI's tools will support the UAE in advancing government, energy, healthcare, education, and transportation, accelerating innovation. As part of the partnership, the UAE will become the first country in the world to enable nationwide ChatGPT access.
OpenAI also says that it has engaged with other countries around the world interested in building their own Stargates.
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